The Death of Yorik Mortwell

by Stephen Messer

  “Evil?” replied the Princess. “Yes, of course, but only in a sort of limited, caterpillar way.”

  “What should we do with them?”

  “Do with them? What do you mean, do with them?”

  “We can’t just leave them here,” said Yorik.

  “Why not?” The Princess sniffed. “They’re beautiful caterpillars. Any day now they’ll spin their chrysalises and turn into butterflies and fly away.”

  “But what about their own world? It’s full of millions of Dark Ones.”

  “Well, it’s full of caterpillars now,” mused the Princess. “Sounds as though they’ll rather like it there.”

  Yorik thought of all the floating masses of green vegetation. He hesitated, imagining a mountain-sized evil butterfly. “Still,” he said, “I’d be worried about them coming back through the portal.”

  “I told you, they’re all caterpillars,” she said in irritation. “Who cares?”

  “Please,” said Yorik.

  The Princess sighed. “Very well. For you.” She reached her twig out and rapidly drew the tablet runes upon the air in silver flame. They lingered a moment, then faded, accompanied by the dead echo of a red lion’s roar. She giggled. “Goodness, it’s fun to do things the old-fashioned way sometimes.”

  “So that’s it?” asked Yorik. “The portal is sealed?”

  “Oh yes,” said the Princess. “And forever. You can’t break my magic with a silly hammer!”

  Yorik looked up at the Manor. It seemed completely back to normal, though entirely dark, no lamps alight with all the residents gone. And the sky had no flame-blue clouds. “I don’t understand why your father let them destroy his body. Why didn’t he fight the Dark Ones himself?”

  The Princess rolled her eyes. “Oh, it was my responsibility, really, and Father says you haven’t learned how to do something properly until you’ve done it yourself. He’s very irritating sometimes.”

  “My father used to say the same thing,” said Yorik.

  Both were quiet for a moment.

  “My sister,” said Yorik. “Susan was inside the wreck, in the topiary garden.”

  “Easy!” exclaimed the Princess. “Let’s go!” She lashed out with her leafy twig. Yorik hardly had time to register the return of his right hand before the Princess seized it and they shot up into the air.

  The Princess’s glow got brighter as they rose, with bits of silver streaming out behind her, until Yorik began to feel much like a comet.

  Their comet orbited all of Ravenby Estate, high, high above.

  “Erde!” shouted Yorik. “I see her!”

  The age of ice on the Estate was long past, but the four hills were still there, jutting up crookedly like knees and shoulders. Two ponds made perfect eyes, and the running creek made a wide mouth that shone up at them in reflected comet glow.

  “Erde, my sister!” cried the Princess. “I restore you!” Her twig leapt, and boulders shot from the earth, and the creek seemed to bend into a smile.

  “Susan!” Yorik spied the wreck of the Indomitable, with Lord Ravenby beside the crashed cabin, crying out the girl’s name and wrenching at a smashed door with an iron rod. The door burst open, and then he was pulling her free. From thousands of feet in the air, Yorik could see the concern on Lord Ravenby’s face.

  “He was trying to protect her,” said Yorik, proud of his sister.

  “Oh, it’s your little ghost friends!” said the Princess. “Do you want to say hello?”

  The comet swooped down, past the wreck and over the Wooded Walk. There they saw the ghosts of Doris and Thomas standing on the path. Doris had thrown her arms around Thomas’s neck and was sobbing into his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, Thomas,” Doris was bawling. “I’m sorry I was such a terrible sister!”

  “There, there,” answered Thomas uncomfortably, patting her on the back. “You can make up for it now.”

  “Let’s leave them alone,” suggested Yorik, and the comet flew back up into the sky.

  “Well,” said the Princess, “what shall we do next?”

  “The topiaries!” said Yorik.

  The comet swooped over the garden. The fires were out, and all that remained were the charred stumps of the animals.

  “Can you grow them back?” asked Yorik.

  “Can I?” cackled the Princess. The twig shot out, and the topiary garden exploded in green.

  “Rise, hare!” shouted the Princess in delirium. “Rise, all you bears and … animals and things!”

  Before Yorik’s eyes the animals grew swiftly, the topiary hare towering over them all. Then each one turned and bowed low, even the hare, toward the Princess’s comet.

  On a stone bench in the garden, Lord Ravenby was sitting beside Susan giving her water from a canteen. Lord Ravenby looked very tired, and Yorik worried about them finding their way home in the dark.

  “Don’t be concerned, Yorik,” said the Princess. She pointed the twig, and a ghostly light like a flickering lamp appeared in the forest a short distance from the humans. “There’s a will-o’-the-wisp to guide them home. Your sister will know to follow it.”

  Susan, seeing the wisp, coaxed Lord Ravenby to his feet, and off they went along the Walk as the light receded before them, drawing them on toward Ravenby Manor.

  The Princess, cometlike, glowed among the stars for several more nights before finally wheeling out of view.

  After she had gone, Yorik gathered in the water garden with Doris and Thomas, and Hatch and Dye too, and the other green spirit-hounds, now beings of pure light, their physical bodies buried days ago.

  The hounds seemed to know what to do without being told. They raced about, woofing and snuffling at the grass, leaping on the children and licking their hands, and tussling in the fountains. Then, as one, they made a great leap and vanished upward toward the stars.

  “It’s like this,” explained Yorik to Doris and Thomas, looking up after the hounds. “You sort of lean back and look at the Milky Way, and see how it moves like a river.…”

  “I do see,” said Thomas, hushed.

  “Me too,” said Doris quietly. She took her brother’s hand. “Goodbye, Yorik.”

  “Goodbye,” said Thomas.

  “Goodbye to you both, and farewell,” said Yorik. He watched as brother and sister fell upward into the universe.

  The water garden was quieter now. Yorik listened for a moment to the splashing offish and frogs, and the eternal gurgle of the fountains. Then he trudged off toward the Manor.

  As he went, he saw a fluttering near his arm. He looked down to see a butterfly, newly hatched from its chrysalis, its wings still wet and ragged.

  “You’re late,” said Yorik. “All the others migrated away already. You’d better hurry after them.”

  He tried to shoo it away, but the butterfly didn’t seem interested in moving on.

  “All right.” Yorik shrugged. “But you won’t like it here when winter comes.” The butterfly followed him, and he left it alone.

  When he reached the Manor, he climbed deftly up the wall toward a high balcony. There he shuffled along the stone balustrade until he found a generous crack. He sat atop it, waiting. The butterfly landed next to him.

  The butterfly peered at him with what Yorik felt was a great deal of curiosity.

  “The Princess said she would give me a great gift,” explained Yorik. “The ability to choose my own ending. Not many receive this, she said.”

  The butterfly flexed its wings, almost entirely dry now.

  “So I asked her if I could stay here and be a part of Erde forever. Yes, of course, she said. Is that hard to do? I asked her. No, said the Princess, it’s quite easy. In fact, it requires hardly any magic at all.”

  Suddenly a door opened, and from within came Susan and the Matron. Together they went to the balcony and gazed over the vast expanse of Ravenby Estate, which once again throbbed with work and life.

  Then Lord Ravenby came through as well. He looked vigorous agai
n, but also rather nervous.

  “Well?” he asked Susan. “Of course, you can take the time you need to decide. But it would be my very great honor. In all that happened, you were the only one who didn’t abandon me. You never left. And you need a father, and I need a daughter.…”

  “Yes,” said Susan.

  “And of course I could never replace your real father, I’m sure,” continued Lord Ravenby anxiously.

  “Yes,” said Susan, smiling and turning. “I will be your daughter. Oh! Look!” She pointed to a dandelion growing from a crack in the stone balustrade. A startled-looking butterfly was flapping nearby. “How odd,” she said. “I didn’t notice this before. Who would think a dandelion could grow in such a place?”

  “Quite extraordinary,” replied Lord Ravenby, wiping at a tear in his eye.

  “Yorik told me a story about dandelions,” Susan said. “He said that the seeds of a dandelion will deliver your dreams to your loved one.”

  And she reached out and plucked the dandelion, and blew. And the seeds spread on the wind. They floated down to the water garden, and onto the Tropical Tell, and throughout the aviary glade, and settled even beneath the topiaries. And some of them landed in the little creek, where they drifted on the waters, along the smiling face of Erde.

  acknowledgments

  For all their efforts with this book, my deepest gratitude goes to Miriam Angress, J. J. Johnson, Jennifer Harrod, John Claude Bemis, Jim Thomas, Chelsea Eberly, Jason Gots, Alison Kolani, Jessica Shoffel, Ellice Lee, and Josh and Tracey Adams of Adams Literary. Also to Gris Grimly, for his inspired illustrations; Edward Gorey, whose art was a constant inspiration; and Robert Herrick, for his poem “The Night-piece, To Julia.”

  {about the author}

  Late at night, through a hidden window, the ghost of STEPHEN MESSER can be seen typing away in his study, high up in the haunted manor he shares with his wife in Durham, North Carolina. In a past life, Stephen was the author of Windblowne. Visit Stephen online at stephenmesser.com.

  {about the illustrator}

  GRIS GRIMLY can best be described as a storyteller. Through his distinctive style and wide selection of media as an author, illustrator, fine artist, sculptor, and filmmaker, he has captivated a variety of loyal collectors. Primarily known for his dark yet humorous children’s books, Gris continues to haunt the imaginations of both young and old. Visit him online at madcreator.com.

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